Stephen A Smith

Pete Carroll apparently has something else to shoot for besides a third consecutive national championship. In an interview he taped with Chris Myers that will be seen on FSN West tonight at 10:30, burnout came up. "I don't know how you avoid it," the USC coach said. "You just go as long as you can go. If your heart is in it, and you love what you're doing, you just go until you just physically break down. "That's what I'm going for, that physical breakdown."

Mike Downey of the Chicago Tribune strolled into the locker room after Team USA's 94-90 loss to Lithuania in an Olympic basketball game, approached the biggest player he could find, and asked a perfectly logical question: "Are you guys the best team in the world?" He found it strange, however, that the subject of his interview was Lithuanian center Robertas Javtokas, not the U.S.'s Tim Duncan. "Yes, I can guess what you must be thinking," Downey wrote. "Not the Robertas Javtokas!

Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle commenting on new 49er Coach Dennis Erickson: "How loose is Erickson's ship? When he coached the Seahawks, TV cameras caught three players eating hot dogs in the third quarter of a preseason game against the 49ers. Erickson said he might fine the players but added, 'I don't have a hot-dog rule.'

Happily for the Celtics, it's not over when some writer says it's over, but when the clock actually strikes 12. Right now, it's only, say, 11:46 p.m. Going into the weekend, they were 17-18 since Christmas with recent losses to the lowly Nets at home and last week's back-to-back games in Milwaukee and at home to Memphis. Not that losing by 20 to the Grizzlies was torture, but Celtics Coach Doc Rivers called the two-minute warning "the only good message this entire game."

Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post, writing irreverently on the Winter Olympics: "Every time I see Jim Nantz I keep thinking: Where's Billy Packer? Does the road to the Final Four really go through Nagano? " 'We are here for a reason,' Nantz gravely intoned on Opening Day. 'To get closer. To climb higher. To pose the question: What can we become? And we seek the answer in the mountains.' "And all I could think of was: 'Hey, beer man!'

Texas Tech basketball Coach Bob Knight again put himself in a harsh spotlight with a profanity-laced outburst regarding his relationship with former player (and now Iowa Coach) Steve Alford during a TV interview. If this latest performance eventually leads to Knight's losing his job, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Stephen A. Smith will gladly hold open the exit door. "While the sports world laments the me-first behavior of individual celebrations, few take notice of one reality: Rarely have these athletes harmed anyone other than themselves or their images," Smith wrote.

Memorable sports events aren't always defined by fireworks and confetti. Sometimes it takes the passage of time to realize and appreciate what is historic. So for those fans of women's basketball who take the NCAA tournament and WNBA for granted on network and cable television, take a moment today and reflect. On this day 30 years ago, the first women's college basketball game was nationally televised. Immaculata (Pa.

Joe Stein in the San Diego Union-Tribune: "A band of misdirected beach boys has taken to the shores of Two Harbors, Minn., this winter to hang 10 on the waves of Lake Superior. "Surfers arrive before sunrise, their boards piled in the backs of SUVs and vans, their Thermoses filled with hot coffee. They come dressed in thick, hooded wet suits, which, along with necessary neoprene booties and gloves, will protect them from water only a degree away from freezing.

Stephen A. Smith in the Philadelphia Inquirer: "Let's skip the pleasantries. Matt Doherty deserved to lose his job. "Never mind his 54-43 record in three seasons at the University of North Carolina. No one should care that he was the national coach of the year just two seasons ago. "When you become the head man at an institution you once represented as a player and systematically go about corroding everything it stands for, you deserve to be ousted. "Expeditiously. Abrasively.

Few, if any, have dominated the UCLA-USC basketball rivalry, which will be renewed today at the Sports Arena, more than the Bruins' Bill Walton. From the 1971-72 season through 1973-74, the Trojans had winning teams under Coach Bob Boyd but couldn't beat Walton and UCLA. "I remember my first varsity game against USC," Walton said. "I was playing center against Ron Riley. The game was just getting going when Riley caught me with one of his elbows right in the mouth.